Accordingly, one wouldn’t expect that the 21st century would see a book on economics soar to the top of the best-seller lists and become the topic du jour among serious political scientists. But that’s exactly what’s happened with French economist Thomas Piketty’s new book, “Capital in the Twenty-First Century.”

New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, a Nobel economist himself, SAYS Piketty’s book “is a bone fide phenomenon”:

Other books on economics have been best sellers, but Mr. Piketty’s contribution is serious, discourse-changing scholarship in a way most best sellers aren’t. And conservatives are terrified. Thus James Pethokoukis of the American Enterprise Institute warns in National Review that Mr. Piketty’s work must be refuted, because otherwise it “will spread among the clerisy and reshape the political economic landscape on which all future policy battles will be waged.”

Well, good luck with that. The really striking thing about the debate so far is that the right seems unable to mount any kind of substantive counterattack to Mr. Piketty’s thesis. Instead, the response has been all about name-calling — in particular, claims that Mr. Piketty is a Marxist, and so is anyone who considers inequality of income and wealth an important issue.

Accordingly, one wouldn’t expect that the 21st century would see a book on economics soar to the top of the best-seller lists and become the topic du jour among serious political scientists. But that’s exactly what’s happened with French economist Thomas Piketty’s new book, “Capital in the Twenty-First Century.”

New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, a Nobel economist himself, SAYS Piketty’s book “is a bone fide phenomenon”:

Other books on economics have been best sellers, but Mr. Piketty’s contribution is serious, discourse-changing scholarship in a way most best sellers aren’t. And conservatives are terrified. Thus James Pethokoukis of the American Enterprise Institute warns in National Review that Mr. Piketty’s work must be refuted, because otherwise it “will spread among the clerisy and reshape the political economic landscape on which all future policy battles will be waged.”

Well, good luck with that. The really striking thing about the debate so far is that the right seems unable to mount any kind of substantive counterattack to Mr. Piketty’s thesis. Instead, the response has been all about name-calling — in particular, claims that Mr. Piketty is a Marxist, and so is anyone who considers inequality of income and wealth an important issue.